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Dollar Bay to Paavola to Coburntown and Home

This morning I went out with my little, elderly friend Eleanor. We went to breakfast and then shopping and then on my way home I picked up some lunch and dropped some off to Joe at work (since it is Wednesday he of course had to go to work!) After I got home I had a bit of lunch and then headed out to go running because it is a perfect day for running… cloudy but still warm, kinda breezy/windy and I had no work so I had plenty of time to get lost just in case! I decided to go up the hill from our house (the link is a map so anyone not local can kind of see where Paavola and Coburntown and Dollar Bay are) to the town where Eleanor grew up (Paavola) and then on to Coburntown which is where one of my coworkers live, then I ran back home by a different route. As a way to keep myself busy while I was running I decided to keep track of all the interesting things I saw to post about later. Too bad I don’t take my camera when I run! So here are all the points of interest from my run…

There is almost no snow left!

I ran walked huffing and puffing up two big hills within the first couple of miles. I hate the first 2-3 miles of almost every run, they are miserable and I get tired easy and usually would rather go home, but after that everything falls into place and the successive running is actually fun and fantastic although I still do get tired and stop to walk occasionally.

Coming down from the second hill I ran past the Paavola wetlands and heard a ton of frogs singing and croaking and chatting away.

Right before I got to Paavola the road got really bad and I was dodging mud puddles muttering to myself and scared the heck out of a deer who was grazing in the woods. She ran off fast!

Right into Paavola I found the house where Eleanor grew up (80+ years ago now). They are doing major renovations and she is a bit upset about it. She says the four rooms that where there when she was growing up were just beautiful! 🙂

I learned that there is a senior citizens center in Paavola but I wonder what they really do there/use it for since it is a tiny town.

I saw chickens and a cute pig playing in the mud.

I also got chased by a very rotund dachshund whose owner called it back before it got too far! Super cute dog!

Just before Coburntown I saw a man power brooming his yard (I would love to power broom our yard!)

And heard more frogs and saw one unfortunate squished from on the side of the road.

Between all the places I went I got barked at about a dozen times

One of the times was my coworkers house, Lisa, she has two shepherd dogs (one who is just about a soul sister to Cora because they are close in age and do the same naughty things!) and they heard a neighbors dog barking at me and popped their heads out from the curtains to woof too. Their names are Max and Ruby (like the little kids T.V. show!)

I ran past one super cool old barn and a few only sort of cool barns

There were lots of old abandoned properties and old relics and random piles of stuff left from when the towns were mining towns and a lot bigger.

On my way back out of Coburntown I ran past Lisa’s sister-in-law, also Lisa (who also works with us in the same store but not the same department), with her dog who didn’t bark at me. I think she lives in Paavola nearby. Everyone knows everyone and it’s kinda fun! Well, we don’t know everyone, but all of them do know everyone!

I ran past a few horses and saw some cows in the distance at one point.

Lots of people have big gardens ready to get planted in a couple of months

I saw one wooly caterpillar crawling across the road

I ran on big gravel, small gravel, sand, hard packed dirt, muddy/lumpy dirt, black top and at least two kinds of concrete. Big gravel on top of dirt road is my least favourite but luckily I only ran on that on my downhill trip home and the view of the Portage was beautiful so I could ignore it.

I ran past all kinds of homes from tiny, old, worn down but still livable mining houses to big, newer, rich people houses.

I saw an old mining equipment graveyard

And ran past a huge man-made stand of huge pine trees where the wind swooshed prettily.

Shortly after that I ran past the house with an entire sled-dog team set up outside. Beautiful, spirited dogs… I don’t know how I feel about them being chained up to dog houses outside but I think that is just how sled dog teams work and as long as they are cared for and loved on I think it must be ok. Really, it isn’t like 12 (or however many- there is a lot of them) high-energy, thick-coated dogs could be in the house…they prefer to be outside anyways I think… so it must be ok. They all seem to be happy and they are fascinating to look at (Joe showed me them the other day after he ran past them himself so I purposely went by today to look at them some more!)

The wind was in my face the entire way out when I was running up hill. It was a bummer, although it did keep my hair out of my face.

My run home was much more pleasant because the wind was at my back and I went down hill most of the time.

The very last bit of my run was on the snow mobile trail which is mostly dry now, thankfully! This is where we usually run, and where Joe really prefers to run. It is the easiest and safest route although the sandiness makes my legs tired faster.

I stopped for a couple minutes at the end to pet a local dog, Harley, who happened to stay with us for a night a couple of years ago when he got loose and we had no idea where he came from. Harley is an obese yellow lab who is rarely tied up so when a runner goes past he goes to greet them. Harley and I have met many times now and sometimes it is hard to get him to go back home (we have two dogs and that is plenty! Plus Harley’s owners love him a lot and they would miss him!) but today his lady owner came out and called him home so I could keep on going!

My whole run took 2 hours and 3 minutes (including stopping time to say Hello to Harley and grab the mail from the mail box) and I went a total of about 11.25 miles. Only around 8.5 of that was running and about 2.5 was walking at various times here and there (mostly within the first couple of miles that I hate with the biggest hills)

There was a 60% chance of rain today and the darker clouds come and go among longer grey ones but somehow we haven’t had any rain yet. I assumed I would get rained on at some point but I never did! I’ll take the clouds though because I won’t get sunburnt as easily and the sun isn’t in my face which I like.

The view out of our back window this afternoon around 4pm or so. It looks dusky but it isn’t, we’re just waiting for the rain to come!

Now it is almost supper time and I’m going to shower and then feed animals until Joe comes home. He’ll have to do his own workout still but I’m not sure if he will bike or run or what but something and then after that it will be supper time!

2 thoughts on “Dollar Bay to Paavola to Coburntown and Home”

I run 4-6 days a week. Last fall and then for most of January and February I was running about 6 but November/December and the past few weeks it has been less if we’re busy or if the treadmill isn’t working right or whatever. Now I have to go back to being better about it though to make sure I can run as far as I’m supposed to!